Sermon - Mark 1:9-15 Following Jesus

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon - Mark 1:9-15 Following Jesus

First Presbyterian Church of Ocean City

February 22, 2015

Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent. We remember during this period the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness as he began his ministry. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes forty days later (excluding Sundays) on the Saturday before Easter. During Lent we journey with Jesus toward the cross, remembering his death and resurrection. Sundays are excluded from this because Sundays are always set aside for celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. Let’s begin today in prayer.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O Lord, our rock and redeemer. Amen.

The early church used these forty days before Easter to educate new members before they were baptized. As early as the second century Christians were fasting during Lent. But the protestant reformers called this practice of a Lenten fast into question. Let me tell you one I my favorite reformation stories.

On the first Sunday of Lent in 1522, a printer in Zurich, Switzerland, named Christoph Froschauer, invited eleven of his friends to a special meal. He served smoked sausage. Now, ordinarily, a meal of smoked sausage would not be a big deal. But, the church in the Middle Ages had declared that God's moral law forbade the eating of meat during Lent. These men were breaking the law. Froschauer's pastor, Ulrich Zwingli, was present at the meal, but did not eat the meat. Within a month Zwingli preached a sermon on fasting during Lent. That sermon was published and circulated throughout Europe. In his sermon, Zwingli argued that there is nothing in the Bible that requires Christians to fast during Lent. In fact the Bible says nothing about Lent at all. Therefore Christians were free to fast or not to fast as a matter of their own conscience. It was their free choice. The church has no authority to command Christians to fast because the Bible is silent on this. It’s ok if you want to eat smoked sausage during Lent. You are free to fast or not as you choose.

Let’s take a look at Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness from the gospel of Mark.

Mark 1:9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

John the Baptist came with a message of “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”. People would come to the Jordan River. John will tell them to repent. “Repent” literally means “to change direction”. John was telling them to think differently.

People usually think about what benefits them. We think about how to improve our health, or get a better job, or buy a newer car or a bigger house. As we think about these things we find ourselves tempted. We are tempted to do things we know we shouldn’t do in order to get what we want. So we lie to our spouses, or we cheat on our taxes, or we steal from our employers, in order to get what we want. We disobey God’s law for our own benefit. This is called sin.

John the Baptist was telling them as they came to the river to repent, think differently. Instead of thinking about what you want, think about what God wants. If we change our thinking this way, we will start to do what God wants us to do. John would symbolize this change in thinking by having people confess their sins, enter into the water of forgiveness, and emerge from the river thinking in a new way. Today we would call this a paradigm shift. One way of thinking suddenly gives way to a new way of thinking. You think about what God wants instead of what you want.

Now, when Jesus came to see John in the Jordan he had no need to change his way of thinking. Jesus was already thinking about what God wanted rather than thinking about what he wanted. Jesus was without sin.

Jesus was baptized by John to begin a new paradigm shift, a new way for people to think. We know this because of what happened when Jesus was baptized. Jesus “saw heaven being torn open.” The dividing barrier separating heaven and earth was torn in two pieces. At that moment there was nothing separating heaven and earth. And with nothing to separate us from God, then God must be here with us. God is here not someplace far away.

This was the new way of thinking that Jesus was instituting. Before Jesus, people thought of God as being far, far away above the highest heavens. But Jesus taught that God is right here with us. And that makes all the difference in the world.

A few months ago I visited the Pocomoke Police station. I went through the front door to visit the chief, not the back door into a holding cell. Chief Sewell showed me his computer screen. On it were video feeds from all over town. He could sit at his desk and watch what was happening at all the potential trouble spots. While he was showing me his new system I began to wonder what if God could see us just as the police chief could see Pocomoke.

Think about how your behavior would change if you thought that God was watching you. You are doing your taxes and your about to claim a false deduction when suddenly you feel like God is looking over your shoulder. Or a young woman invites you up to her room when suddenly God is next to you telling you to go home to your wife. Or you are counting money for your employer and it would be so easy to slip a twenty in your pocket, but then you realize that God is sitting next to you watching what you do. If you believe that God is with you then you will become more obedient. Wouldn’t you?

Of course not everyone will be happy that God is walking next to them. Criminals, adulterers, cheats, and liars will no doubt not want God to be close by. And the biggest cheat around, Satan, certainly does not want you thinking this way. He will tempt you. Satan will whisper in your ear that it is ok to do whatever you want do. Satan whispered that into Jesus’ ear in the wilderness. But Jesus would have none of that. Jesus boldly declared that the Kingdom of God has come near. God is with us. Just as God walked in the garden with Adam so too now that Jesus has come. God walks with us. Our new way of thinking, our paradigm shift, is that God sees us all the time.

I will never forget the time that first realized that God was here with me. I was driving to church one Sunday. As I drove to the church I began thinking about many things. I was unhappy. My hopes and dreams went unfulfilled. My business was struggling. I didn’t have a girlfriend. So I started to pray. As I prayed I got angry. I was a Christian and went to church every Sunday, but God’s blessings seemed to go to everyone else, not me. God never seemed to give me what I wanted. And so I prayed angrily. I continued to pray as I entered the church and sat down in the midst of believers. That’s when I sensed that God was sitting behind me and I heard him say, “It’s in the book.” That’s when I reached down and picked up a pew Bible. As I leafed through it I realized I knew some of these stories from Sunday school class as a kid. But I had never read the Bible, or even studied it seriously as an adult.

This event had a major transformative effect on my life. The next Sunday I came to church early and attended the SOAR Singles Ministry, the first Sunday school class I had been in in decades. The following Wednesday I began attending a Bible class called the Bethel Bible Series. For the next ten years I attended every Bible study the church offered and I became a Bible teacher. Then I went to seminary to study the Bible in even greater depth. I experience a verbal call from God to focus my life on the study of the word of God. I responded to this call be becoming a pastor and by preaching and teaching the Bible as faithfully as I can.

Jesus received his call from God by hearing “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus was then prepared for his ministry by withstanding the temptations of the Devil and by knowing that God was with him. And then Jesus began his ministry by proclaiming that the boundary between heaven and earth has been removed and therefore God is here with us.

During Lent I urge you to live your lives as if God was standing next to you, which, by the way, he is. Do what he tells you to do as if he is watching you all the time, which he is. Be obedient to God’s will, not your will, remembering that he is always watching us.

Let’s pray. Heavenly father we know that the barrier between heaven and earth has been torn in two. You now know who we are and what we do. Help us to remember that you are watching us whenever we are tempted to go our way rather than following you. We ask that you not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil because you are with us. This we pray in your son’s name. Amen.